326 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts, and Letters. 
Its .area is about thirty-nine thousand square miles, or twenty- 
five million acres, corresponding roughly to that of the state 
©f Ohio'. The land, like that in most of the prairie states, 
slopes gradually upward from an altitude of seven hundred 
and fifty feet in the east, to one of four thousand in the west, 
the lowest parts being along the Cimarron in Pawnee county, 
and the highest in the extreme west of Beaver county. 1 
A range of hills extending in a wide curve from the east cen¬ 
tral to the southwestern border and culminating in the Wichita 
mountains, whose highest peak has an altitude of twenty-three 
hundred feet, breaks up the monotony of the prairie. The ter¬ 
ritory is crossed from northwest to southeast by three large 
rivers, the Arkansas, Canadian and Red, and their branches, 
the Cimarron, North Canadian and Washita. 2 The valleys of 
these rivers are generally well wooded, and in the eastern part 
of the territory there are considerable areas covered with tim¬ 
ber, chiefly the different varieties of oak and mesquite. 3 
All of Beaver county and the neighboring district are west 
of the line of sufficient rainfall and consequently, without irri¬ 
gation, suited to 1 stock raising only. The area of sufficient 
rainfall extends farther west in Oklahoma than in the states to 
the north, and the farmer has pushed his way well into the wes¬ 
tern tier of counties, and in the river valleys many successful 
farms are found well beyond the danger line. The soil of cen¬ 
tral and northeastern Oklahoma has proven its excellence by the 
abundant crops of the last ten years. It is well described by 
Governor 0. M. Barnes in his report for 1900. He says: 
a The surface is mostly of a rich, red clay or sandstone decom¬ 
position mixed, in the valleys, with black alluvial deposits, 
sad is highly productive, as shown by the rich results to the 
husbandman during the past three years. The soil is of suffi¬ 
cient depth and character to render it almost inexhaustible, and 
ifc will stand many successive crops before needing fertiliza¬ 
tion.” 4 In this region the crops of the North and South meet. 
1 Interior Department, Miscellaneous Reports, 1901, pt. 2, p. 414. 
2 Ibid., 1900, pt. 2, p. 632. 
s Ibid., 1898, p. 681. 
4- Ibid., 1900, pt. 2, p. 632. 
